MOSCOW (AP) — On a frigid evening on the outskirts of Moscow, two HIV-prevention activists unzip backpacks, pull out packs of hypodermic needles and start discretely approaching people leaving a nearby pharmacy with an offer that could save their lives. One man, cheeks sunken and behavior jittery, takes a plastic bag full of needles, a […]

As Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova trumpeted Russia's progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS, critics insist that the government policy prohibiting methadone substitution continues to hamper efforts to slow the spread of the disease.

Katya moved to Moscow seven years ago and three years later — when she was pregnant with her first child — discovered she was HIV-positive. In a country where open discussion of AIDS is rare, Katya initially didn't know where to turn. She tried her local priests, but they told her that "there's no such thing as HIV." After going through feelings of shock, denial and helplessness, she came to accept her diagnosis with the help of her friends and family, and later by embracing religion. But it was only when she began antiretroviral therapy two years ago that the quality of her life improved.

In her one-room flat, as a small shelf of porcelain cats looks on and the smell of mold hangs in the air, Zoya pulls down the left shoulder of her black blouse and readies herself for her next hit. A friend and ex-addict uses a lighter to heat a dark, pebble-like lump of Afghan heroin in a tiny glass jar, mixes it with filtered water and injects it into Zoya's shoulder. The 44-year-old widow is a wreck: HIV-positive, overweight and diabetic. After 12 years of dealing and drug abuse, the veins in her forearms and feet are covered in bloody scabs and abscesses, too weak and sore to take fresh injections.

Russia has been in the grip of an HIV epidemic for years now with many organisations believing that it will not reach the millennium development goal 6. This is partly due to Russia’s inability to tackle the prevalence of HIV amongst IDUs which are most likely caused by a Russian government abysmal drug reduction strategy […]